The SOFT LANDINGS FRAMEWORK for Better Brieﬁng, Design, Handover and Building Performance In-Use

Home , Atkins (company), Buro Happold, Davis Langdon, Hoare Lea, Mott MacDonald, Sir Robert McAlpine

www.softlandings.org.uk the SOFT LANDINGS FRAMEWORK for better brieﬁng, design, handover and building performance in-use

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Acknowledgements

This Soft Landings Framework was authored by Mark Way of the Darwin Consultancy and Bill Bordass of the Usable Buildings Trust, with assistance from Adrian Leaman of Arup and Building Use Studies, and Roderic Bunn of BSRIA.

Development of the Soft Landings Framework was led by an industry Task Group convened by BSRIA and comprising the following organisations:

AECOM Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios Ann Bodkin Sustainability + Architecture Fulcrum Consulting Arup Hammerson Bennetts Associates Land Securities BSRIA Max Fordham LLP CIBSE University of Cambridge Darwin Consultancy Usable Buildings Trust Davis Langdon Consulting Willmott Dixon Group Edward Cullinan Architects

This Framework is based on the Soft Landings methodology devised by Mark Way and developed in 2003/04 with a Soft Landings Steering and Support Group comprised of the following organisations: Arup Fielden Clegg Bradley Architects BSRIA Gardiner & Theobald Buro Happold Hoare Lea Partnership Carillion Mace CIBSE Max Fordham & Partners University of Cambridge Estate RMJM Management and Building Services Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Co Mott MacDonald Group Shepherd Construction Davis Langdon & Everest Whitby Bird and Partners Edward Cullinan Architects William Bordass Associates Faber Maunsell | AECOM W S Atkins Zisman Bowyer and Partners

the SOFT LANDINGS FRAMEWORK for better briefing, design, handover and building performance in-use

All rights reserved. Although this work in its entirety is subject to the publisher’s copyright, permission is granted to users to reproduce and modify extracts for practical application. Unless otherwise agreed with the publisher all published extracts must carry the following acknowledgment: “Reproduced from the Soft Landings Framework, published by BSRIA and authored by the Usable Buildings Trust.”

BSRIA BG 4/2009 June 2009 ISBN 978 086 022 6857 Printed by Imagedata Group

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Located on a rural site on the edge of Bath, the headquarters for Wessex Water was designed to meet the company’s long-term business plan. This placed sustainability at the centre of the company’s operations. As a consequence, the project not only considered environmental issues, but also a wide range of social and economic factors, such as staff interaction within the office, the relationship with neighbours, and the ability of the building to adapt to future change.

Throughout the project the client ensured that the end users were consulted to inform the brief and to respond to design development. Key members of the client’s team included representatives of the facilities management and IT departments, all of whom engaged in debate and discussion on how to extract the best from the new building. This covered not only the initial period of occupation, but also the flexibility required to accommodate future needs. Drilling down into all such operational issues ensured that there was a thorough understanding of how the building was intended to work. Incoming staff were advised of the operating principles and details of their new workspace.

The three year post-occupancy evaluation was conducted jointly by the client, design, construction and maintenance team.

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Introduction

Why bother with Soft Landings?

Perhaps it was this year’s bi-centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, rather than the recession, that prompted thoughts about evolution and survival of the fittest, but it struck me that his observations could equally apply to buildings.

As an industry, we have often seemed incapable of learning about the performance of our own creations, with the inevitable result that buildings regularly fail to meet their owners’ operational expectations or, worse, are demolished less than a generation after their completion. For those outside the industry the idea of continual improvement - ploughing back the lessons from one completed project to the next - must be obvious but, with few exceptions, this is rarely done by an industry too obsessed by capital cost. Shortcomings in basic requirements such as comfort, energy consumption and adaptability are not only irritating and costly in their own right, but also undermine attempts to achieve high levels of sustainability.

There are reasons for optimism. The need for lower-carbon buildings is rapidly establishing a culture for measurement of energy that is a stone’s throw from greater knowledge about performance in general. Systematic, post-occupancy evaluation is widely recognised to be a hugely important step in the right direction, but it needs to be linked to a rational methodology for assessing the briefing, design and commissioning stages. This is where Soft Landings comes into its own, closing the loop between design, construction, operation, feedback and into design again. As the title suggests, the raison-d'être of Soft Landings is to provide better buildings and a more effective service to the client. Particular thanks are due to Michael Dickson for encouraging its development and to Buro Happold for its financial support.

It became clear to me during the last major recession in the early 1990s that occupiers who had a choice due to the abundance of surplus property would always go for the building that was well considered and highly functional. The current recession is following a similar pattern, so surely the subtext for the industry should be to embrace the knowledge gained from performance assessment and turn it into competitive advantage. Only the best buildings will survive in the long term.

Rab Bennetts, Bennetts Associates, June 2009

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Soft Landings was being developed with the support of the Director of Estates at the University of Cambridge while the Centre for Mathematical Sciences was being constructed. The phased development of the Centre and a ‘no blame’ attitude adopted by the client permitted a continual assessment of the emerging design in actual physical performance and user expectation.

Following completion of the first phase, a post-occupancy evaluation was carried out to measure the building performance of the recently occupied buildings. As part of this study an occupant survey and a full building pressure test was also conducted. Many of the results were incorporated into design changes for the subsequent building phases.

The final appraisal revealed that the occupants and the University viewed the project as a great success.

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Contents

08 The birth of Soft Landings

10 Background to Soft Landings

13 Introduction to the procedure

16 Stage 1: Inception and briefing

18 Stage 2: Design development and review

20 Stage 3: Pre-handover

22 Stage 4: Initial aftercare

24 Stage 5: Years 1 - 3 Extended aftercare and POE

Appendices

26 Appendix A: Example worksheets

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The birth of Soft Landings

As an architect I used to design buildings, get them built, hand them over, and then move on to the next job. This was rarely the end of the matter: I had to respond to things that came up during the defects liability period, and help with the final account - routine procedures that had to be followed. Along with most of my fellow professionals, my post-handover connection with the building in use was largely reactive. However, I felt that the accumulation of experience could be put to better use if one could head off issues before they happened. This meant knowing more about the building in use.

In the late 1990s, as a project director, I found myself regularly calling in to check progress with the client at the tail end of a particularly leading-edge building RMJM had designed for a major pharmaceutical company. My team had put a lot of brainpower into the project and it would be a pity if this was undermined by the usual post-handover minor glitches that could easily be allowed to mutate into chronic problems. This happened to coincide with a prolonged user occupation programme and offered a golden opportunity to be around while staff were beginning to work there. I borrowed a typical office as a base and used its facilities just like any member of staff, while observing the building in use and the occupants at work.

This short period in residence was a transforming experience, providing major insights that I had suspected, but not experienced in thirty years of professional practice. I saw people not understanding how things were supposed to work, such as the BMS-linked solar blinds, and was able to explain the design intent to them. I could often spot things not working properly before the users did, such as over-zealous presence-detected lighting, head-off potential problems, and organise follow-up. I learnt about things that were good but which users didn’t understand. I found well-intended design features that fell at the first fence when used by non-architects, in other words the average building user.

In a subsequent project at Cambridge University, David Adamson, the Director of Estates, asked me to give one of a series of lectures. It was around the time of the last financial crisis and there was much talk of hard or soft landing of the global economy (where clearly lessons are not learnt). I picked up the theme in my talk, and Soft Landings for buildings was born.

The Soft Landings research David Adamson then wondered whether the approach might become more of a standard procedure, which resulted in the next stage of development. Supported by the University Estates Department I led a project guided by a panel of designers, project managers and client representatives that investigated what might need to be done. In time, we were joined by Bill Bordass of the Usable Buildings Trust (UBT), and the team drew on a rather similar idea known as Sea Trials, together with other recommendations from the PROBE series of post-occupancy surveys.

In 2004 we produced preliminary documentation, in the form of a scope of service document set for Soft Landings1. Since then, team members and others have been applying parts of the service in some of their projects. The results have been insightful, but mostly restricted to the firms that were members of the original development team, and those in close touch with them.2

1THE WORKSHEETS IN THE APPENDIX TO THIS FRAMEWORK DOCUMENT ARE TAKEN FROM THIS SOURCE. 2 THE AWARENESS-RAISING DOCUMENTS ON SOFT LANDINGS, PUBLISHED IN 2008 BY BSRIA AND THE USABLE BUILDINGS TRUST, INCLUDE EXAMPLES FROM TWO AWARD-WINNING BUILDINGS: THE MATHEMATICS FACULTY AT CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY AND HEELIS, THE NATIONAL TRUST'S HEAD OFFICE IN SWINDON.

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When we began, some expected us to come up with a completely new procurement process. The difficulty of this soon became apparent as a wide range of contracts and processes are already deeply embedded with standard forms, agreed procedures and so on. So, at best, Soft Landings was likely to be regarded as yet another process among many. Instead, we saw it as a golden thread which could run alongside any procurement process, improving the setting of design targets, the managing of expectations with a focus on outcomes, reinforcing activities in the weeks immediately before and after handover, and providing a natural route for feedback and post-occupancy evaluation.

Some were keen to explore whether financial penalties could be attached to the attainment of agreed performance targets. After considering this in some depth, we recommended against it, owing to the expense of setting-up a legally-defensible system, uncertainties about metrics, the difficulties in dividing any responsibility for outcomes between all the parties concerned (not least the occupiers and facilities managers), and the fact that the industry is (as yet) largely unfamiliar with the true in-use performance of the buildings it produces. Instead, we felt that Soft Landings needed to be undertaken in a spirit of learning and continuous improvement, or possibly with a financial incentive which would be easier to organise and to share out than a penalty. After a few years, designers and builders may have become sufficiently confident to be able to offer guaranteed performance. But to start with, we need to learn in a no-blame situation, otherwise onerous requirements may actually stifle the purposeful innovation that we need to produce better buildings with far fewer environmental consequences.

Next steps With the challenges of more sustainable buildings now hard upon us, there has been increasing interest in scaling-up Soft Landings. In response to this, BSRIA offered support to me and the Usable Buildings Trust to help widen the scope and knowledge of Soft Landings by convening an industry group and helping to prepare a publication and an implementation plan. This Framework is the fruit of these efforts and sets the overall scene. Detailed development will be tailored to the needs of specific contexts.

The world is becoming aware of the need to reduce building energy use and carbon emissions. There is also growing interest in post-occupancy evaluation (POE). Less well appreciated is the fundamental importance of integrated feedback, feed-forward and POE to the development and refinement of the new techniques and technologies that are central to ensuring that sustainable strategies work in practice.

I hope that this framework for Soft Landings will interest and inspire clients, designers, builders, occupiers and managers around the world, be of immediate practical utility to those who want to make building design and construction more performance-driven, and narrow the credibility gaps that often yawn between expectations and outcomes. In the longer term, I hope that more detailed documentation and services will evolve to support the application of Soft Landings principles in a widening range of procurement processes by different people, in different sectors, and in different countries.

Mark Way, June 2009

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Soft Landings:

Provides a unified vehicle for engaging with outcomes throughout the process of briefing, design and delivery. It dovetails with energy performance certification, building logbooks, green leases, and corporate social responsibility.

It can run alongside any procurement process. It helps design and building teams to appreciate how buildings are used, managed and maintained.

It provides the best opportunity for producing low-carbon buildings that meet their design targets. It includes fine-tuning in the early days of occupation and provides a natural route for post-occupancy evaluation.

It costs very little, well within the margin of competitive bids. During design and construction, Soft Landings helps performance-related activities to be carried out more systematically. There is some extra work during the three-year aftercare period, but the costs are modest in relation to the value added to the client’s building.

Most of all, Soft Landings creates virtuous circles for all and offers the best hope for truly integrated, robust and sustainable design.

This document was authored by the Usable Buildings Trust, the originator of Soft Landings Mark Way, and Roderic Bunn of BSRIA. For more information contact roderic.bunn@bsria.co.uk or go to www.softlandings.org.uk Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 2

www.softlandings.org.uk

the Soft Landings Core Principles

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Soft Landings Core Principles BG 38/2012

The Soft Landings Framework1 is an open-source procedure co-authored by BSRIA and the Usable Buildings Trust and published by BSRIA. These Soft Landings Core Principles have been developed by BSRIA working with the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group. They are written for construction clients and their professional teams as guidance to inform Soft Landings processes for both new build and refurbishment projects.

A Soft Landings project is defined by following Core Principles. The package of principles should be adopted in their entirety in order for a construction project to be deemed a true Soft Landings project. It is important that clients and project teams recognise that the five Stages of Soft Landings are interdependent. In particular, Stage 2: Design Development is predicated on Stage 1: Inception and Briefing, while Stage 3: Pre-handover requires follow-through with Stage 4: Initial Aftercare.

Some clients may wish only to adopt the graduated handover element of Soft Landings, (typically Stage 4: Initial Aftercare, and Stage 5: Extended Aftercare), in which case expectations of the performance benefits will need to be modest. Although late adoption of Soft Landings could bring some benefits, clients and aftercare teams should be prepared to face problems with building performance that could have been anticipated and dealt with had Soft Landings been adopted earlier and in its entirety. Graduated handover can be useful in its own right, but far more can be achieved by applying all Core Principles from the start.

Even on projects that adopt Soft Landings from the outset, cherry-picking of the Core Principles may introduce risks and fragilities. The risk of underperformance will increase proportionately as Core Principles are weakened or abandoned. For this reason, the term Soft Landings should not be applied on projects where any Core Principles are missing, as disappointment with the end product may bring the process – and those who were involved on the project – into disrepute.

Core Principles could be expressed in a Soft Landings Code of Conduct drawn up for a project, similar to the Considerate Contractors’ Scheme, to which all parties would be willing signatories. This would require statements – based on clear and relevant project objectives – to encourage people to aim high and improve product delivery. This would benefit from a simple monitoring and reporting process.

Clients are not advised to make the Core Principles a contractual requirement in themselves, rather to use them to inform their requirements in each section of the project documentation. The Core Principles can be added as an appendix, but ideally each principle should also be inserted at relevant points in the project tender documentation. The Core Principles can then be referenced in the chosen form of appointment for the designers, and in the contract for the builder. Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 4

the Soft Landings Core Principles

A SOFT LANDINGS PROJECT IS DEFINED BY THE FOLLOWING CORE PRINCIPLES

ADOPT THE ENTIRE PROCESS

1 1. The project should be procured as a The Soft Landings process is designed to be integral to conventional design and Soft Landings project, and project construction procedures, not an add-on. Most of the briefing, design and documentation should explicitly construction worksteps can be carried out within conventional design processes state that the project team will and forms of contract with very little additional work. The aftercare worksteps adopt the five work stages in the are additional, but nevertheless designed to complement existing post-completion Soft Landings Framework to the activities such as seasonal and continuous commissioning, energy monitoring and extent possible reporting, and post-occupancy evaluation.

Project documentation should include a commitment to use the Soft Landings process in its entirety, but doing so with a light touch rather than by breaking it down into specific contractual deliverables. Soft Landings will work best with people and organisations who are enthusiastic, and willing to collaborate and share risk and rewards.

There needs to be clear agreement within a Soft Landings project team on the purpose of Soft Landings, and an agreed definition that is not merely improved commissioning or facilities support after handover. This could be supported by a clear plan for carrying out the five Soft Landings stages, as defined by the Soft Landings Framework.

PROVIDE LEADERSHIP

2. The client should show leadership, The Core Principles need to be upheld by the client, and owned by a project’s Soft engender an atmosphere of trust Landings champions. and respect, support open and honest collaboration, and procure a Ideally there should be a Soft Landings champion on the client side who will be design and construction process that involved all the way through, and a matching champion on the project team side can be conducted with equal levels (who may share the role or pass on responsibilities through the contractual of commitment from all disciplines chain). The Soft Landings champions should be people with good experience of contract management. They should seek fair play on both sides, and ensure that both clients and contractors adhere to their Soft Landings obligations, as defined in tender documents.

Clients may find benefit in drawing up a voluntary Soft Landings Code of Conduct for their project, (similar to the Considerate Contractors’ Scheme) to which all parties would be signatories. This could be wholly or partly based on the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group mission statement:

“We are committed to ensuring that Soft Landings principles are applied on our new build and refurbishment projects, that operational outcomes will match the design intentions, and that the needs of the building’s end users are met.” Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 5

SET ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

In Soft Landings, the client is an active The client has an obligation to identify and make key people available for 3. participant, and leads the process at consultation and reporting (an obligation also on the supply chain). To the extent the outset to develop the roles and possible, this should include all technical people, and personnel with a stake in the responsibilities. This should include management or subsequent operation of the building, such as facilities managers client representatives, all key design and caretakers. professionals, and the supply chain. The people involved in this process The client should ask their construction professionals to ensure continuity of should be the actual individuals who personnel. It is not unusual for bid teams to win a project, only then for a will work on the project different set of people to work on the job. Realistically this cannot be prevented, but clients can ask organisations for greater continuity as part of their Soft Landings commitment.

Organisations appointed later need to be brought into the Soft Landings team. Outline roles and responsibilities should therefore be included in tender documentation. Greater effort should be made to bring in key specialists to advise on design development earlier than would be the norm, such as the commissioning engineer, and the facilities manager (where appointed). Suppliers and sub-contractors whose input is central to building performance should also be involved in early discussions. These should include the controls designer or engineer, lighting controls supplier, and catering and IT suppliers.

Where these people are not available or yet to be appointed, proxies in the form of industry specialists should be invited to comment in a (non-contractual) advisory capacity. This input, which might be provided for free, will help those with Soft Landings roles and responsibilities to appreciate all the issues and opportunities before options are closed down.

All aftercare activities should be agreed early in the project (no later than tender stage), even if the client opts to issue a separate contract for aftercare services rather than extend the main contract to cover the three years of aftercare. The aftercare roles and responsibilities – along with any specific performance targets – also need to be set early so that the objectives and desired operational outcomes are clear from the outset.

ENSURE CONTINUITY

Soft Landings should be continuous The thread of Soft Landings must be maintained throughout the entire project. 4. throughout the contractual process. It The roles and responsibilities defined at the project’s inception need to bridge should be made part of all later any gaps in professional responsibility that tend to occur, particularly in design appointments, and expressed clearly in and build procurement processes. These gaps can be deepened by overly- contracts and sub-contract work prescriptive contract clauses. Maintaining continuity will not be easy, but with a packages as appropriate. The client little effort the client and Soft Landings champions can prevent the good and main contractor should ensure that intentions of Soft Landings from falling through any contractual gaps. sub-contractors and specialist contractors take their Soft Landings Clients should require a clear gateway process throughout their projects to roles and responsibilities seriously enable sign-off of Soft Landings activities. Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 6

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COMMIT TO AFTERCARE

5. There should be a clear and Soft Landings includes a three-year aftercare period. By the end of year one the expressed commitment by the client building should have settled down. By year two, the building should have entered and project team to follow-through stable operation, during which time the energy data should be reviewed and with Soft Landings aftercare adjustments recommended in a quest to improve performance. The second year activities, and to observe, fine-tune will also involve fine-tuning, at the end of which a structured post-occupancy and review performance for three evaluation (POE) should be carried out. The third year will be a period where the years post-completion. The aftercare aftercare team respond to findings from the POE, make any necessary activities should aim to achieve the interventions, and maintain their monitoring of the building’s performance and Soft Landings performance energy consumption. objectives, and any targets agreed at the design stage The frequency of site visits should tail off as the building settles down and monitoring becomes routine. The aftercare process should culminate in a final POE to measure and report the building’s performance (primarily energy performance and occupant satisfaction) against the agreed performance objectives, and any specific targets required by the client.

In design and build procurement, dialogue will be needed between the main contractor (who may hold the aftercare contract) and the Soft Landings aftercare personnel. Those doing troubleshooting and fine-tuning during Soft Landings aftercare will ideally be from the original design team, but may also be specialists appointed by the client. Independent analysts are recommended for POE.

Clients need to ensure that the feedback loop between building operation and design – central to Soft Landings learning – is not broken. Effort should be made to ensure all relevant feedback is captured and communicated to the original project team, and to those who procured the building.

For aftercare and fine-tuning activities to add value, it is vital that commissioning is done well. Clients must ensure commissioning (including seasonal and continuous commissioning where relevant) has a high status at project inception. Commissioning must be well-defined and planned, adhered to, and protected from time and cost pressures. All commissioning activities must be fully recorded.

SHARE RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY

6. The client and main contractor It is vital to Soft Landings that the project operates within a no-blame culture. It should create a culture of shared risk will ensure that information is shared, and that problems are discussed openly and and responsibility. Incentives should not hidden or buried. While defects and poor workmanship must be resolved, all be used to encourage the project outcomes – good and bad – should be treated as a learning experience. This team to deliver a high-performance means that there must be a clear policy of proactive problem resolution, where building that matches the design emerging issues are addressed and resolved collaboratively. intentions Incentives of various kinds can be helpful, but should be free of heavy legal definition. Any specific performance targets linked to those incentives should be kept realistic, but stretching where appropriate. Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 7

USE FEEDBACK TO INFORM DESIGN

The client’s requirements, the design Feedback from other projects is valuable for informing the client’s needs, for 7. brief, and the design response understanding the needs and expectations of the building’s end-users, and for should be informed by performance obtaining insight into the technical performance of systems. Feedback can also be feedback from earlier projects. The used as design progresses, particularly for reality-checking decisions at key stages in desired operational outcomes need the process, and at points when outline ideas turn into systems, and from systems to be expressed clearly and into specified products. realistically Feedback should be used to inform the employer’s requirements, the brief that emerges from those requirements, and the subsequent design response.An example of useful feedback is the energy profile of a similar building, which would help to identify the likely energy use of specific systems in the new building, such as lighting. It would also enable the designers to get a better grasp of energy loads, such as IT, that are not covered by the Building Regulations but which are directly related to ventilation and cooling loads.

The feedback process also requires occupant expectations to be obtained and understood. They also need to be well-managed from project inception through to occupation. The use of occupant surveys can be valuable for understanding expectations, which will be a blend of what people need to perform their tasks, what they would like in terms of comfort levels, and their desired amount of control over environmental systems (also see Core Principle 10).

FOCUS ON OPERATIONAL OUTCOMES

8. The Soft Landings team should focus Reality checking should identify the cause of changes that will affect the client’s on the building’s performance in- requirements and the design brief, Subsequent alterations should be agreed and use. Regular reality-checking should appended to the documentation. Performance targets should be revisited, be carried out to ensure that the checked, and altered where necessary. detailed design and its execution continues to match the client’s Designers need to check and refine their energy use targets. This should be done requirements, the design team’s on a regular basis during the project, preferably in line with the client’s gateway ambitions, and any specific project process. A reality-checking process could make use of existing provisions, for objectives example being linked to team meetings, design reviews, and contract prelims.

Outputs from reality-checking could inform a project’s operational risk register. This could be a standing item for all progress meetings. BSRIA’s Pitstopping approach2 provides a reality-checking methodology.

INVOLVE THE BUILDING MANAGERS

9. The organisation that will manage It is important to anticipate the operational requirements of running a new or the finished building should have a refurbished building. The emphasis of this input should be on designing for ease meaningful input to the client’s of use, management and maintenance. Designers familiar with building requirements and the formulation of technologies often struggle to accept that building managers may not the brief understand the purpose of building services systems and how to operate them.

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the Soft Landings Core Principles

elsewhere if the management organisation doesn’t yet exist.

PFI, and design, build, finance and operate procurement can include a consultation process that will meet this Core Principle, but firms offering a single point of responsibility can still have organisational boundaries that inhibit interdepartmental communication. In Soft Landings, such barriers need to be overcome for facilities management knowledge to be accessible to the project team.

INVOLVE THE END USERS

10. Prospective occupants should be Soft Landings requires occupant expectations to be obtained, understood and actively researched to understand well-managed from inception through to occupation. Clients need to instruct their needs and expectations, which project teams to research the needs of known occupants (or use published should inform the client’s evidence where the occupants are not known), and use that feedback to inform requirements and the design brief. the design. There should be a clear process for managing expectations throughout The use of occupant surveys can be valuable for understanding these the construction process and into expectations, taking account of what they need in order to perform their tasks, building operation This is particularly crucial where a building’s systems require significantly more (or less) involvement by the end users in controlling environmental conditions. It’s vital that the occupants’ expectations are well managed throughout the project, so that nothing in the building comes as a shock to them after handover.

SET PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

Performance objectives for the The client’s objectives should include energy use (including both regulated and 11. building should be set at the outset. unregulated loads and run times), alongside other metrics such as arrangements They should be well-researched, for operation and maintenance, user training and familiarisation, and building appropriate and realistic, capable of management. Some objectives may not be precise at the start (particularly for being monitored and reality- energy and water use), so they should be revisited and firmed up as the project checked throughout design and progresses. construction, and measurable post- completion in line with the client’s It’s important that the project’s performance metrics are outcome-focused, specific, key performance indicators measureable, realistic, and of clear benefit.Targets should be based on prevailing and relevant benchmarks. Soft Landings analysis tools that can be used to inform performance targets include CIBSE’s TM22 Energy Assessment and Reporting Method3, and the Building Use Studies (BUS) occupant questionnaire survey4.

COMMUNICATE AND INFORM

12. Regardless of their legal and To the extent possible, the client and main contractor should champion a policy contractual obligations to one of open (and technically intelligible) communication. Ideally, agreement should be another, project team members need reached that allows all parties in the contractual chain to communicate freely to be comfortable communicating with one another without contractual barriers frustrating or preventing it. with the entire team in order to Partnering-type charters and contracts may provide forms of words and achieve the levels of collaboration phraseology that clients can use in their project strategy documents. necessary to carry out Soft Landings activities In design and build, the practice of novation means that design professionals are Soft landings Core Principles final_Layout 1 12/03/2012 14:53 Page 9

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often contractually bound from talking directly with the client unless they go through the builder. While this protocol may have to be followed, clients that create a spirit of openness, and who champion a no-blame culture and express it in the employer’s requirements, may get better performance from their project teams.

It is also important for communication channels to include the sub-contractors, particularly performance-critical specialist contractors responsible for controls and building management systems.

The obligation to communicate and inform culminates in the structured post- occupancy evaluations, and in the final project appraisal at the end of the third year of aftercare. All involved have a duty to understand and communicate building performance findings – the client for its procurement policy, and the professional and building team members for use on their next projects.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

1The Soft Landings Framework, BSRIA BG 4/2009 2Pitstopping – BSRIA’s reality checking process for Soft Landings, BSRIA BG 27/2011 3Energy Assessment and Reporting Methodology, CIBSE TM22 (due late 2012). 4Details on the Building Use Studies occupant survey method can be found at www.usablebuildings.co.uk

The Usable Buildings Trust can be contacted via www.usablebuildings.co.uk More details on Soft Landings can be downloaded from www.softlandings.org.uk For more information contact [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher.

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how to Procure Soft Landings Specifications and supporting guidance for clients, consultants and contractors

By Roderic Bunn

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Acknowledgements

How to Procure Soft Landings was authored by BSRIA’s Roderic Bunn with assistance from members of the Soft Landings User Group.

BSRIA would like to give special acknowledgement to individuals and organisations who served on the Soft Landings Procurement Working Group and who provided specific content and technical assistance:

Ashley Bateson, Hoare Lea Gavin Lang, Buro Happold Mark Savage, The Energy Solutions Group Howard Tinkler, Sir Robert McAlpine Tamsin Tweddell, Max Fordham LLP James Warne, Boom Collective Ant Wilson, AECOM

BSRIA also acknowledges the input from members of the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group, an industry network of Soft Landings practitioners:

AECOM Hampshire County Council AEDAS Heriot Watt University ARUP Hoare Lea & Partners Balfour Beatty Kier Western BDP Max Fordham LLP Buro Happold Mitie Castleoak Morgan Sindall End Systems N G Bailey E-Documents Sir Robert McAlpine The Energy Solutions Group Skelly & Couch Engineering Services Consultancy Wates Essex County Council Willmott Dixon Fulcrum Mott McDonald Zisman Bowyer & partners

BSRIA also thanks other organisations and individuals who contributed ideas and concepts reproduced in this guide with their kind permission. BSRIA acknowledges the assistance from Architype and Lisa Pasquale with examples of Soft Landings aftercare documentation.

Deve loped with the SOFT LANDINGS USER GROUP

how to PROCURE SOFT LANDINGS Specifications and supporting guidance for clients, consultants and contractors

All rights reserved. Although this work in its entirety is subject to the publisher’s copyright, permission is granted to users to reproduce and modify extracts for practical use in project documentation

BSRIA BG 45/2013 July 2013 ISBN 978 086022 719 9 Printed by Imagedata Group soft Landings procurement FINAL 170713_Layout 1 18/07/2013 16:58 Page 3

Contents

Introduction 4

Soft Landings essentials 7 Soft Landings Core Principles 7 The client’s role 8 Principles of procurement and tendering 9 Performance criteria 10 Human factors 10 Pre-qualification 10 Invitation to tender 11 The tender interview 12 Budgeting for Soft Landings 12 Setting roles and responsibilities 14 Key sub-contract packages 15 Procuring aftercare services 15 Aftercare contracts 16 Post-occupancy evaluation 17 Expert advice 18 Alignment of Soft Landings with the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 19

Clients appointing design professionals 21 Stage 1: Inception and briefing 21 Stage 2: Design development and review 23

Clients appointing main contractors 26 Stage 1: Inception and briefing 26 Stage 2: Design development and review 31 Stage 3: Pre-handover 33 Stage 4: Initial aftercare 39 Stage 5: Extended aftercare and POE 43

Main contractors appointing sub-contractors 46 Core requirements 47 Stage 2: Design development and review 48 Stage 3: Pre-handover 48 Stage 4: Initial aftercare 49 Stage 5: Extended aftercare 50 Specific sub-contractor requirements: BMS and controls 50

Co-ordinating Soft Landings 52

The role of the commissioning manager 55

Post-occupancy evaluation 58

Recommended reading 60

Appendices Appendix A: Example roles and responsibilities worksheet 61 Appendix B: Stage 2 Worksheet example: Design 62 Appendix C: Maintenance contract decision tree 63 Appendix D: Public sector procurement map 65

how to PROCURE SOFT LANDINGS 3 soft Landings procurement FINAL 170713_Layout 1 18/07/2013 16:58 Page 4

Introduction

This guide is written primarily to help public and private sector clients and main contractors procure Soft Landings services from their construction supply chains. The requirements have been developed by BSRIA with industry input by members of the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group. The requirements written in italics are intended for use in tender documents and terms of appointment. Clients and others acting as employers are free to reproduce them in their employer’s requirements. For example, contractors can adopt the suggested wording when seeking to appoint sub-contractors. While users can pick and choose the requirements to suit their needs, BSRIA does urge employers to ensure the core principles of Soft Landings are covered as a minimum. The requirements cover Soft Landings activities for client procurement documentation, including pre-qualification questionnaires, and invitation to tender processes. Suggested wording is also provided to help clients appoint main contractors, and for main contractors appointing sub-contractors where those sub-contractors would have input to Soft Landings. Note that contractors can adopt requirements from the section covering clients appointing design professionals. These requirements will apply when contractors are appointing designers under a design and build contract. Where designers are novated from the client to the main contractor, ideally the contractor should inherit the client’s expectations of the consultant’s Soft Landings responsibilities where they are defined at the inception stage. The requirements are categorised as primary and optional requirements. The primary requirements use the term ‘shall’ to imply a specific Soft Landings Appointing professional designers role or activity that must be performed. The terms ‘should’ and ‘could’ are used where the employer is free to apply a degree of discretion to an activity. Note that the requirements for clients appointing professional designers are limited to Soft Landings While great care has been taken to ensure the requirements can be used Stage 1: Inception and Briefing, and Stage 2: Design Development. This is because the roles and verbatim, they are not designed to be used as contractual clauses. Clients and responsibilities listed under the main contractor contractors who intend to adopt them in contracts are strongly advised to section for the handover and aftercare stages are seek professional opinion before using them in this way. That said, clients and broadly applicable to consultants. For traditional appointments, where the consultants would be contractors should try and keep Soft Landings roles, responsibilities and contracted directly to the client for the entire activities free from heavy legal definition, as this will compromise the spirit of project, clients are advised to use the collaboration and shared risk that is at the heart of the Soft Landings process. requirements listed in the main contractor section, A perception of increased risk might also stifle creative thinking and modified as appropriate. innovation.

4 how to PROCURE SOFT LANDINGS soft Landings procurement FINAL 170713_Layout 1 18/07/2013 16:58 Page 5

how to Procure Soft Landings

What is Soft Landings? Soft Landings is fully described in the Soft Landings Framework , published by BSRIA and freely available in PDF from www.softlandings.org.uk. Soft Landings is designed to help clients and occupiers get the best out of their new or refurbished building. It is designed to reduce the tensions and frustrations that often occur during initial occupancy, and which can easily leave residual problems that can persist indefinitely. At its core is a greater involvement of designers and constructors with building users and operators before, during and after building handover. It emphasises the importance of improving operational readiness and performance in use. Despite its title, Soft Landings is not just a handover protocol. It also provides a link between: ● The procurement process: setting and maintaining client and design aspirations that are both ambitious and realistic, and managing them through the whole procurement process and into use ● Initial occupation: providing support, detecting problems, and undertaking fine-tuning; and ● Longer-term monitoring, review, post-occupancy evaluation (POE) and feedback: drawing important activities into the design and construction process which are both rare in themselves and often disconnected.

Soft Landings extends the duties of the team before handover, in the weeks immediately after handover, for the first year of occupation, and for the second and third years of occupation. The procedures are designed to augment standard professional scopes of service, not to replace them. They can be tailored to run alongside most industry standard procurement routes. Major revisions to industry standard documentation are therefore not necessary. The main additions to normal scopes of service occur during five main stages: 1 Inception and briefing to clarify the duties of members of the client, design and building teams during critical stages, involve building users and operators, and help set and manage expectations for performance in use. 2 Design development and review (including specification and construction). This proceeds much as usual, but with greater attention to the procedures established in the briefing stage, reviewing the likely performance against the expectations of users and building operators, and achieving specific outcomes. 3 Pre-handover , with greater involvement of designers, builders, operators and commissioning and controls specialists, in order to strengthen the operational readiness of the building. 4 Initial aftercare during the users' settling-in period, with a resident representative or team on site to help pass on knowledge, respond to queries, and react to problems. 5 Extended aftercare and POE in years 1 to 3 after handover, with periodic monitoring and review of building performance.

how to PROCURE SOFT LANDINGS 5 soft Landings procurement FINAL 170713_Layout 1 18/07/2013 16:58 Page 6

Some contractors – particularly on large projects – are creating a role known as the Soft Landings co-ordinator. Although the Soft Landings Framework does not require someone to play this role (Soft Landings is set of activities that should be shared among the project team), some benefit may be had from appointing an overall co-ordinator, particularly on large and complex projects. The co-ordinator could be in charge of calling and arranging Soft Landings meetings, and ensuring documentation is kept up to date. However, it is important to prevent people delegating Soft Landings responsibilities to a co- ordinator that they would otherwise carry out themselves. Soft Landings roles and responsibilities are designed to be shared among the project team, not done by a specialist consultant. To do that would be to miss the point of collaborative working and shared risk. BSRIA is keen to get feedback from clients and practitioners on the usefulness of this guidance so it can be enhanced and improved. Roderic Bunn BSRIA, July 2013

6 how to PROCURE SOFT LANDINGS

Cover_Soft Landings cover.qxd 18/07/2013 16:42 Page 3

the built מ BSRIA environment experts

BSRIA gives you confidence in design, added value in manufacture, competitive advantage in marketing, profitable construction, and efficient buildings

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Whatever your building ¢ Instrument hire, ¢ Market research and services requirement sales and calibration intelligence contact BSRIA:

T: +44 (0)1344 465600 F: +44 (0)1344 465626 Membership is the foundation of BSRIA’s E: [email protected] W: www.bsria.co.uk expertise and independence

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Offices in Bracknell, Beijing, Dusseldorf, St Helens, North America, Toulouse, Madrid, Brazil and Associates in Armagh BG 27-11 (pitstopping) cover2_D3-2010 Legislation cover.qxd 28/06/2011 11:40 Page 1

A BSRIA Guide www.bsria.co.uk

Pitstopping

BSRIA's reality-checking process for Soft Landings By Roderic Bunn

BG 27/2011

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The project was undertaken by BSRIA with the assistance of the following people who provided advice and technical assistance:

David Churcher BSRIA Gary Clark Heriot Watt University Steve Symonds Kier Western Richard Tudor WSP James Warne BDP

BSRIA also acknowledges the help and inspiration of Adrian Leaman of Building Use Studies and Bill Bordass of the Usable Buildings Trust, specifically with many of the illustrations and concepts reproduced in this guide, some of which have been modified to suit the Pitstopping process. Developed in conjunction with the European research project, I3CON.

This publication has been designed and produced by Alex Goddard.

Every opportunity has been taken to incorporate the views of the contributors, but final editorial control of this document rested with BSRIA.

This publication has been printed on Nine Lives Silk recycled paper.

©BSRIA 54075 July 2011 ISBN 978 0 86022 693 2 Printed by ImageData Ltd

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS

FOREWORD

The construction industry faces a long list of challenges, not least the delivery of low and net zero carbon buildings within the decade. If this particular challenge is to be met, the professions must address the fact that talented teams still deliver buildings that perform badly both in terms of their energy use and, more fundamentally, as places to live or work. Understanding the causes of this performance gap between design and reality is essential to cutting carbon in the built environment.

The reasons for this gap between design and reality are many, ranging from poor design, construction and installation to inadequate control and user training. One thread that weaves its way through from early design to building use is a failure to manage innovation.

If the environmental challenges posed by regulation and policy measures are to be met by architects and engineers, accepted and established norms in design practice and specification must change. Innovation comes with risks particularly when it involves an unfamiliar or new technology.

Design teams manage these risks by undertaking research and by discussions with suppliers and manufactures. Inevitably no matter how diligently this process of knowledge building is undertaken, a true understanding only develops when the innovation is tested in reality.

The risks associated with innovation are compounded by the design process in which decisions have to be made, with often limited contextual information. As the design evolves, so the context can change. If decisions are not revisited then solutions can become inappropriate, leading to a mismatch between design expectations and performance in use.

Recognising the inherent risks of innovation is the first step; the second step is managing the risks. This BSRIA guide, BG 27/2011 Pitstopping – BSRIA’s reality-checking process for Soft Landings, offers a framework for innovation and design risk management. It encourages the review of decisions by a wider range of interested parties beyond the design team bringing together a range of skills and viewpoints, particularly that of the building user.

The process will help capture knowledge while minimising the performance gap. It has the potential to enable the professions to innovate with more confidence and to adopt solutions that are both appropriate and capable of delivering buildings that meet ever-increasing expectations.

Nick Cullen Partner, Hoare Lea & Partners

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS

CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 PRINCIPLES OF PITSTOPPING 6 2.1 The background to Pitstopping 6 2.2 Applying Pitstops to building projects 8 3 PITSTOPPING – A QUICKSTART 10 3.1 Pitstopping – a 10 point primer 11 4 PITSTOP STAGES 13 4.1 Pitstop 1: Scheme design reality check 15 4.2 Pitstop 2: Technical reality check 16 4.3 Optional pre-tender reality check 17 4.4 Pitstop 3: Tender stage reality check 17 4.5 Pitstop 4: Pre-handover reality check 18 4.6 Pitstop 5: Post-handover sign-off 19 5 THE PITSTOP PROCESS IN DETAIL 20 5.1 Selecting a Pitstop topic 21 5.2 Scheduling Pitstops 24 5.3 Locations for holding Pitstops 25 5.4 Pitstop facilitation 26 5.5 The Pitstop agenda 28 5.6 Pitstop participants 31 5.7 Managing the mindsets 35 6 OUTPUTS FROM PITSTOPS 37 6.1 Recording Pitstop actions 39 6.2 Recording Pitstop findings 42 6.3 Ownership of activities 42 6.4 Soft Landings close-out reviews 43 REFERENCES 59

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: FACILITATION TECHNIQUES 45 APPENDIX B: SOFT LANDINGS ITT AND PQQ 49 APPENDIX C: PITSTOPPING REVIEW SHEET (EXAMPLE) 52 APPENDIX D: EXAMPLE REPORTING FORM FOR PITSTOP 4 54 APPENDIX E: HANDOVER PLAN AND DIARY OF EVENTS (EXAMPLE) 55

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS

INTRODUCTION 1

1 INTRODUCTION

Buildings don’t crash quite as spectacularly as aircraft, and fortunately without the casualties, but they do crash in their own way, often doing a lot of environmental damage in the process.

Recent post-occupancy evaluations of new non-domestic buildings, often boasting technical innovation and renewables, have reported energy consumption over double the design estimation, in the worst cases up to five times higher. Such gaps between design intention and reality are shocking in themselves, but what is more worrying is that the performance shortfall is happening despite tougher Building Regulations, despite complex energy prediction software, and despite all the renewable technologies being piled into the buildings.

It seems we may have reached a limit with what we can do with largely regulatory mechanisms. Maybe the answer is to shift our focus away from what we do, and improve the way we go about doing it. In other words, reforming the process, not the product.

The concept of Pitstopping – a series of reality-checking workshops to assess a building system from the perspective of its operational outcome – is specifically designed to run within Soft Landings. Soft Landings is fully described in BSRIA BG 4/2009 The Soft Landings Framework[1]. For anyone new to it, Soft Landings is essentially a form of graduated handover for new and refurbished buildings, where the project team is contracted to watch over the building, support the occupant and to fine- tune the building’s systems, for up to three years post-completion.

So what is an operational outcome? The simple answer is that it’s not a design input. This might be a statement of the obvious, but the problem is that designers are arguably institutionalised by their education and their professional practices to think that their design inputs will naturally emerge as operational benefits. The fact is, they don’t. Increasingly they are doing the opposite.

For example, innovative technologies devised to deliver low energy consumption and comfortable conditions have a nasty habit of being difficult to commission, unreliable in operation, complicated to manage, hard to maintain, and expensive to service. Designers are rarely aware of these consequences, because they seldom go back to find out.

Are designers placing too much trust in manufacturer’s performance claims? Possibly. Do they rely increasingly on specialist subcontractors to do detailed design and installation? Increasingly. Do designers fully appreciate the operational implications of the systems they specify? Rarely. Have they fully considered the usability, maintainability and manageability of low carbon technologies? How could they, unless they ask and find out?

Of course there are many reasons why a building’s actual performance differs from the design intention. Things can shift, particularly after initial targets (such as energy use) have been set. The client’s requirements can also change, such as the need for additional ICT, or data-

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS 1

1 INTRODUCTION

communications. Occupant numbers might increase, which will raise the small power, ventilation and cooling loads and push the limits of the comfort system. Longer working hours might extend the hours of occupation. The occupier may decide to have the building cleaned outside normal hours of occupation, thereby requiring the electric lighting to operate for longer.

It is because things change that project teams need to keep a careful watch on design criteria, not just at the design stage, but also throughout procurement. They need to recognise when targets or performance requirements come under pressure. They need to spot the causes and control them, or – where changes are unavoidable – modify the original design objectives and agree new operational targets with the client.

Quite apart from asking designers to anticipate all the operational DESIGN INPUTS AND variables likely to affect a building system – a tall order in itself – the OPERATIONAL OUTCOMES design process also presumes that designers take an evidence-based approach. However, despite the growing popularity of post-occupancy Building designers and constructors evaluation, a truly evidence-based approach to design is still not routine don’t think like users of buildings. in the construction industry. They think about technical features, complying with official guidance, Daylighting often falls into this category. The design of daylighting is and designing to set-points. These often initially based on notional values, such as 3 – 5% daylight factor. are design inputs. Such criteria are usually set very early and can only take into account the An operational outcome is constraints and variables known at that time. But the specific dependent on more characteristics of a space – such as a school classroom with its projectors than consequence of just a design and whiteboards – may not be known at the point at which the school’s input. It is the sum total of the orientation, floor areas and elevations are being decided. Deployment of design input, plus the choice of product, its installation, its the blinds to enable a whiteboard to be visible will merely serve to commissioning and its usability, reduce daylight levels. It will also cause electric lighting to come on, manageability and maintainability. even though – theoretically – enough daylight is available. Worse, the These things determine a system’s deployment of blinds may compromise natural ventilation airflows. ultimate functionality A daylight factor is therefore only a rule of thumb: a figure that, while For example, a required rate of ventilation may be satisfied by an not necessarily incorrect, may not be robust enough for detailed design. openable window, with the rate But the chance of the factor being revisited later is very slim. It becomes measured in litres per second per embedded in the daylighting design and never reality-checked. person. The right amount of window free area may be achieved Can these issues be picked up in conventional design reviews? The by a motorised actuator under the control of a room carbon dioxide answer is probably not. Something else is needed, preferably a reality- sensor. This would satisfy the checking process that extends beyond design into the construction, pre- design input. The operational handover, and post-handover phases. outcome may be very different: the motorised actuator may be noisy, disrupting the occupants' Why design review isn’t reality checking concentration. The window may Each professional firm in a design team is required to check the quality of create uncomfortable draughts or its technical work. Design assumptions will be checked against the brief, it may let in insects. all calculations by architects and engineers checked for mathematical

Pitstopping is designed to enable accuracy, and the favoured design options rechecked to ensure the most project teams to look at systems appropriate solution has been proposed. Health and safety will be down the operational end of the reviewed, along with legislative and regulatory requirements and build- telescope. ability issues. In other words, due diligence tests designed to ensure the firm’s professional indemnity insurance will not come under threat.

2 PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS

INTRODUCTION 1

Conflicts between windows and glare-control blinds in naturally ventilated buildings are a classic case of disconnects between design and system specification. Two systems, thought to be independent of each other, may in reality be inter-related or even inter-dependent. This relationship can be harmful to both systems. Here, glare control blinds restrict airflow, while the draughts cause the free-hanging blinds to flutter and rattle. Pitstop reviews should highlight such conflicts before they occur.

People from outside the project, from other departments or with specialisms such as controls or public health, can provide useful input and quality control. Multi-disciplinary practices often encourage interdepartmental design reviews. External review in this form can be very helpful in asking fundamental questions of the design (which may be taken for granted by those close to the project and therefore protective of it). However, despite their virtues, design reviews are still prey to many pressures. First, time is always short. Project directors have the experience and the authority to comment on design quality, but their time is precious. Time constraints, greatest at the pre-tender stage, can lead to tick-box reviews rather than a discursive appraisal. It is human nature to tick off items on checklists quickly, and get the job out of the door.

Second, egos and commercial imperatives can obstruct objective review. This occurs particularly between professionals in the same team, but also during interdepartmental design reviews where the architects and engineers may be in departments that compete for work. There is also a perception that a bad review is one where difficult questions are tabled and answers are in short supply. No-one wants to appear negligent.

A good design review is nonetheless one that leads to improvements. But if a project stage is reaching its end, any late proposals for improvement may be regarded as a nuisance (and optional) rather than beneficial (and a necessity). They may be dropped or parked. To make matters worse, a client may seek to introduce financial penalties for non-performance into the contractual appointment. This might motivate a designer to err on the side of caution rather than optimise the design.

Then there is the relay race of design, the ‘over wall’ transfer of responsibilities that are a consequence of the staged approach in conventional procurement. Such practices mean that mistakes are more likely to occur at professional interfaces and work stage interfaces (which are often blurred), rather than within a work stage.

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS 3

1 INTRODUCTION

The design and construction relay race creates gaps where the technical batons are dropped or hidden rather than passed on. Worst of all, the commissioning engineers and premises managers inherit batons as grenades that blow up later.

While a good design review should consider performance-in-use issues, design engineers and architects may not have the experience to address the key factors of usability, manageability and maintainability. This is exacerbated by the trend away from site-based training. Without a site- based background, raw graduates may not understand the practical implications of their design work.

Something extra to conventional design review is therefore needed: a form of review that enables a project team to assess the usability, manageability and maintainability of design proposals in order to overcome the shortcomings in the traditional review processes described above. This different form of review needs to be unhurried, broad in scope, include people with the appropriate knowledge, be able to bridge professional boundaries and gaps between work stages, and generate outputs that are seen as beneficial to the project. It must not waste time and resources or add bureaucratic drag.

The Pitstopping process described in this guide is BSRIA’s answer to this need. Pitstopping is designed to allow designers to periodically reconsider critical design issues by looking at them down the operational end of the telescope (rather than from purely a design perspective). Although the team may not be able to respond immediately to any emerging problems, they can certainly plan ahead. They can either flag the problem as something to be resolved during detailed design, or later by the design and build contractor through more insightful procurement, or through more attention during commissioning.

The outcome of a Pitstop reality-check might be extra training, or more thorough familiarisation and customer support in the crucial weeks before and after handover. Pre-emptive measures will prevent nascent problems from turning into chronic shortcomings in the building that disappoint the design team, annoy the client and exasperate the end users.

Before getting into the details of how to run a Pitstop review process, a final warning about the dangers of not reality-checking decisions.

On 8 January 1989, a British Midland Boeing 737-400 en-route from Heathrow to Belfast crashed just short of East Midlands Airport, coming down just east of Kegworth and ending up on the west embankment of

4 PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS

INTRODUCTION 1

the M1 motorway. The cause of the accident was due to the flight crew shutting down the wrong engine after engine trouble was detected. The flight crew didn’t notice their error until the damaged Number 1 engine lost all power, whereupon it was too late to power-up the undamaged Number 2 engine. The pilot tried to extend the glide to make the runway threshold, but did not have enough height.

Although 39 passengers died in the accident, 74 survived including those on the flight deck. The toll could have been much higher had the aircraft’s pilot failed to avoid Kegworth village – and every car on the busy motorway.

The court of inquiry identified many extenuating circumstances. The digital cockpit instruments in the new aircraft were unfamiliar to the pilots who were more versed in conventional analogue instruments. There were many aural and other sensory signals that told the pilots that they had made the correct decision in switching off Number 1 engine, such as the disappearance of vibration and smoke. However, both pilots were held liable for what the Air Accidents Investigation Board (AAIB) termed a “fatal misconception”.

Of the many findings that emerged from the AAIB investigation, the aircrew were found to have overstretched themselves, and failed to prioritise actions that put critical decisions before lesser activities, such as advising the airline of their predicament. Moreover, they did not revisit their decisions made at the start of the emergency to check whether they were correct. In their defence, they saw nothing to make them reconsider what they had done, but the failure to carry out such reality checks, once the emergency had been stabilised and the aircraft was in steady descent, was deemed inexcusable.

The more responsibility and faith is vested in technology, the more that trained teams must always remain alert to the risks that lurk within it. That is the key point of reality checking: architects and engineers need to find better ways of ensuring that their buildings perform closer to their design intentions. BSRIA’s Pitstopping method is a tool designed to help achieve that ambition. We hope you find it useful.

Roderic Bunn July 2011

PITSTOPPING FOR SOFT LANDINGS 5

Soft Landings & Government Soft Landings

www.softlandings.org.uk

Soft Landings & Government Soft Landings A Convergence Guide for Construction Projects

™

www.bsria.co.uk Soft Landings & GovernmentBSRIA BG Soft 61/2015 Landings i

Soft landings - GSL ver5.indd 1 12/08/2015 14:26:44 Acknowledgements

BG 61/2015 Soft Landings and Government Soft Landings was authored by Ashley Bateson on behalf of the BSRIA Soft Landings User Group.

BSRIA acknowledges the input from members of the BSRIA Soft Landings Executive:

Stephen Ward AECOM Alan Jefcoat Arup James Warne Boom Collective James Hepburn Building Design Partnership Grant Widlake The Energy Solutions Group Michael Chater Hampshire County Council Ashley Bateson Hoare Lea Tamsin Tweddell Max Fordham Stuart Thompson Morgan Sindall Mark Savage Next Control Systems Gary Clark Wilkinson Eyre Alasdair Donn Willmott Dixon

BSRIA would also like to acknowledge the input from Andrew Digby of the Ministry of Justice who leads the Government Soft Landings Stewardship Group and Jennifer Bone of the Ministry of Justice, who provided the image and accompanying caption for the Liverpool kitchen project.

This guide was designed and produced by Joanna Smith of BSRIA.

Developed with the SOFT LANDINGS USER GROUP

Soft Landings & Government Soft Landings ™ All rights reserved. Although this work in its entirety is subject to the publisher’s copyright, permission is granted to users to reproduce and modify extracts for practical use in project documentation.

BSRIA BG 61/2015 August 2015 ISBN: 978-0-86022-745-8 Printed by: Berforts

Soft landings - GSL ver5.indd 2 17/08/2015 08:52:39 Soft Landings & Government Soft Landings

Preface

Soft Landings is increasingly being recognised as an important process in helping to ensure the actual building performance in terms of energy consumption and occupant comfort closely matches the design intent. This is particularly relevant in the public sector where it is usual to have long leases or ownership of a property, and where the benefits of Soft Landings through the building process and life cycle analysis can clearly be demonstrated.

It is important that government departments continue to demonstrate what can be achieved through the adoption of central government’s version: Government Soft Landings. As case studies develop showing the financial, environmental and social benefits, these should be used to encourage take-up by the private sector.

I believe that the implementation of Soft Landings will increasingly encourage innovative use of new technology. Indeed, this is already happening with a number of forward-thinking organisations implementing software solutions linked to equipment and processes to produce more efficient buildings. This, together with the development and integration with Building Information Modelling, is a big opportunity to really squeeze the performance gap.

It is encouraging to see continued collaboration between BSRIA and the public sector to ensure feedback is provided for review. This document compares the attributes of GSL with the BSRIA Soft Landings Framework and reviews both methodologies to ensure that the lessons learnt will result in improvements, not just in the process, but also in building performance and occupant comfort. This should assist in achieving the seismic shift which is required in the industry to achieve what a lot of experts believe is the industry’s Holy Grail: demonstrating how well-designed, energy efficient and well-managed buildings can result in improved occupant health and wellbeing, and potentially productivity.

Mitch Layng IEng FCIBSE Portfolio Energy Manager – M&G Real Estate.

Soft landings - GSL ver5.indd 3 12/08/2015 14:26:45 Author’s Preface

Increasingly, clients and professional teams are realising that good management of the construction, handover and post-occupancy evaluation process is essential in the achievement of better-performing buildings. Soft Landings provides a platform for delivering better buildings. The Government’s plans to implement Soft Landings on centrally-funded projects from 2016 is a welcome step towards making the Soft Landings process more mainstream. Whilst there may be some differences in how the BSRIA Soft Landings Framework and the Government Soft Landings process will be applied, both methodologies are unified in their aim to deliver construction projects with a greater focus on performance outcomes. This is a great opportunity for clients, designers, contractors, building managers and end- users to work together to get the buildings they really want.

Ashley Bateson MSc CEng MCIBSE MEI Head of Sustainability - Hoare Lea

Soft landings - GSL ver5.indd 4 12/08/2015 14:26:46